


to have & to hold, & to let go once more

by unicyclehippo



Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [26]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Unrequited Love, perhaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22207591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: prompt: "You're a terrible liar."or, jester follows up on her suspicion that beau is avoiding her.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824289
Comments: 38
Kudos: 471





	1. Chapter 1

‘Are you avoiding me for a _different_ reason?’

Beau hadn’t noticed the door open, deep in her fourth attempt at meditation—Fjord’s not the only one who can be cool and meditate-y and steady and solid, okay, she can do it too but it’s also _not_ a competition and he’s her bro forever—but now her eyes flicker open and she sees the thin stream of warm light that pours from the corridor into the dark room.

Jester’s shadow is thrown nearly across the room, nearly right up to Beau’s feet. If Jester moved the smallest bit forward, Beau could probably touch it. But Jester doesn’t move.

‘Huh?’ She makes a minor production of stretching, cracking her neck from side to side. ‘Avoiding—Jes, we went over this, I’m _not_ —‘

‘I _heard_ you,’ Jester hisses, insistent. Beau can’t see her face with the light behind her; worse, she can’t even imagine how it might look. Jester sounds sad but she also sounds _angry_ and Beau hasn’t the foggiest idea what that might look like on her. She slips into the room. Closes the door with a _snick_ of the lock that sounds loud in the silence.

Beau breathes. She isn’t sure when she had stopped. Works on keeping her face calm and still, because she might only be able to make out the shimmering shoulders of Jester but the other girl can see in the dark and -

Beau pushed to her feet. Walks slowly toward the desk where she knows there was a candle.

‘What’d you hear?’ Beau asks as she walks. And if her back is turned to Jester, well, that’s totally by accident and not at all intentional so she can’t see Beau’s face. What could she have heard? The discussion with Nott? Something else?

‘That’s not why.’

‘Why what?’

‘That’s what you said. You said why do you think I’m avoiding you and _that’s not why._ So,’ Jester says with a dry little sob like she’s already pre-cried all her tears, ‘so you _are_ avoiding me but the reason is worse than, than me not saving you.’

Beau closes searching fingers around her tinderbox. slips it open and pulls out a match. She taps the rounded end to the table with a dull tap tap before twisting it, square end tapping. Twists it again.

Tap tap.

Tap tap.

Tap tap.

‘I don’t—I didn’t think I was avoiding you, Jes.’

‘Well you were!’

The match stick flares as she drags it across the rough striking strip on the tinderbox. Beau cups the flame in her hand and touches it to the candle wick until it catches. She shakes the fire off the match, returns the used stick to the box. Taps it down on the table.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, very honestly, turning now so that she can see Jester—the arms wrapped around her own middle like she desperately needs a hug, the searching frown—and so Jester can see her. ‘Really. I’m sorry, Jes, I’ll do better. I didn’t mean to make you feel like—‘

‘Are you really not going to tell me why? You’re not - you’re not saying, _Oh Jester that’s so silly,’_ Jester says, words fast and pitching higher with both her typical mimicked voice and also panic. ‘Which means there _is_ a reason and if there’s a _reason_ why you - why you don’t want to be my _friend_ anymore, I really want to know, Beau-‘

‘No! No, Jes,’

‘- so I can _fix_ it because I don’t—‘ She stops with a gulped sob, and Beau— _when had she started to move?—_ finds herself in front of her, crouched low to meet her eyes, hands hovering in the space over Jester’s elbows.

‘There’s nothing to fix, Jes, I promise! _Nothing_. And if there were, it’s not you, it’s not you, you’re great, it’s not—it’s _nothing_ ,’

Jester laughs, snottily and sad. Beau’s heart stings.

‘You’re a really terrible liar, Beau,’ she says, words thick. Her hands inch tighter around her waist. ‘I get it. I’ll, um, I’ll sleep in Yasha’s room and—‘

‘Jes,’

‘Give you your space and, um-‘

‘ _Jester_ ,’ Beau says, and flinches at the way the name comes out. Altogether too raw, pained. Altogether too frightened. Pleading. For her to _understand_ , for her to not—to not decide on these things without giving Beau a chance to explain. ‘What can - what do I do? To fix this? That’s not what I _want_ , you have to know I don’t want to hurt you,’

‘I just want to know why! You won’t even look at me and, and when we _do_ talk you don’t tell me things, and you don’t want to be near me,’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Then why won’t you even _touch me,_ Beau!’ Jester snarls, and her hands unwrap from around her waist, arms lifting. She laughs again, so fucking sad, when Beau pulls her hands back. ‘See? What did I _do_?’

Beau has no magic of her own but for a moment she sees two futures set out before her, plain as the freckles on Jester’s nose. In one, she says and does nothing, and breaks Jester’s heart. In another, she tells her the truth and breaks her own.

Beau is bad. Selfish. A thief, a criminal, a stupid girl who got her friend killed, a fool playing dress-up in the raiments of dedicated people.

She sets her hands down on Jester’s arms. Eyes flutter at the feel of her smooth, cool skin. Beau slides her hands up to Jester’s shoulders and down to just above her elbows, revels in it. Just once.

Jester’s breath catches in her throat.

‘You have to know I never wanted to hurt you,’ Beau tells her. She hardly recognises her own voice, hears it come out, feels it rumbling in her chest, but there is a split second delay between hearing the words and knowing _Oh shit this is me, I’m doing this, I’m saying this_. ‘You’re my best friend, Jes. And I honestly,’ she huffs a laugh, ‘honestly thought it’d be fine. That I could pretend until it wasn’t a problem anymore.’

‘What-‘

‘You want to know why I don’t _touch_ you?’ Beau’s fingers press tighter. Her thumbs drag high, knead into the hard muscle and soft flesh of Jester’s arms. Her hands move up of their own accord to Jester’s shoulders, graze up the side of her neck. She feels more than sees the hitch of Jester’s breath, the way her chest fills suddenly with air. The way Jester’s eyes flicker up to meet her own, finally, wide open and filled with _something_ as the confusion and hurt and pain drain rapidly away.

_In for a copper, in for a gold._

Beau lifts one hand, trails it over Jester’s sweet curling horn on that side. Taps her fingers over the sharp point, runs them down the rough ridges of the bone, along the swirl toward where it rises from the tender skin of her forehead. Her other hand sets itself where it has always wanted to—splayed across Jester’s jaw and neck, fingers dragging from the hairline back toward her palm in tiny, scraping lines. Thumb brushing over the swell of her cheek.

Jester’s breath hitches again. Her mouth drops open but she says nothing.

‘If I touch you, Jes, I never wannna stop. If I _look_ at you,’ Beau tells her, tone still low, hoarse, but now filled with pleading as she urges her to _understand_ , ‘I never wanna stop. So you can’t—you can’t fucking know how bad I wanna _touch_ you sometimes.’

She leans in, metal to magnet, unable to resist. Closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to see Jester’s wide eyes. Presses her forehead to Jester’s.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Jes, I never meant—‘

‘You like me,’ Jester whispers.

Beau shakes her head, still touched to Jester’s. She takes a moment. Feels the sweet curve of her jaw in her hand. The soft of her shoulder as her other hand drops to it, follows it down to her elbow, her forearm, swirls around the knob of her wrist. Feels the way she shivers against the cold of Jester’s skin, wanting to warm her. Beau’s stomach clenches tight. It drags upwards, folding in and in on itself as she draws on every bit of her courage, buried deep in her gut, to say, ‘Love you, Jes.’

She nearly gives in. Nearly steals that first, precious kiss from her friend. But she doesn’t; instead, Beau knocks her forehead very gently against Jester’s and retreats. Pulls her hand from where it cradled Jester’s cheek. Steps away, letting Jester’s hand drop. She nearly buckles, seeing Jester’s pupils blown wide, mouth dropped into a sweet and inviting _o_ , the way her breath comes ragged, but the way Jester’s tail curls anxiously behind her stops her dead.

Beau swallows hard and with a final halting breath like she thought of and thought better of saying something more, she steps fully away, toward the door and out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has been in my drafts for a long time. it has two titles. the first is 'tender is the night'. the second, and my favourite, is 'the inherent homoeroticism of roommates & the dark'

When Jester was younger, much younger than she is now, she used to have trouble sleeping. She would toss and turn and her bedsheets would end up kicked to the floor or else knotted tight around her legs, pillows scattered as she searched in vain for the right position.

It wasn’t, as her mama thought, that she didn’t _want_ to sleep. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

Jester owns a singularly active imagination. One that excels when given leeway to dream. When she was young, these dreams were beautiful. They were a gift from her best friend, the glimpse that he could give her to a wide wild world she hadn’t had the chance to see for herself: fields of endless flowers; nests of strange creatures that didn’t stir at their trespass, the Traveller holding her small hand snug in his; a night spent swimming high in a sky of patchwork blues, the two of them neatly fitted into the far left back of a flying V of honking birds; and so, so many others—some dreams stranger still, others just _lovely_.

Recently, though… Jester hasn’t found it easy to sleep. When she manages it, they’re the same dreams as ever—bright and brilliant and oftentimes soothing, especially when the Traveller knows they’ve been having a rough time. He protects her dreams, as he always has.

It would be nice to have that tonight, if only she could reach them.

The soft of her mattress clings to her like wet sand and exhaustion presses down on her like being a mile underwater and she can do nothing but watch as the events of the last few months wash together in front of her eyes in some macabre watercolour. The real edges of those images, those memories, blur and bleed together. Some portions wash away entirely and she can’t quite recall what was said or where they had gone, or why, exactly, someone had been laughing in that one.

The cuts and slashes and wounds always seemed to keep their sharp edges. The crimsons seemed to keep their vivid reds. It didn’t seem very fair.

_Count the drifting clouds, my sapphire. Listen to the gulls, how they laugh. How they call to one another. Can you hear them calling to you? Come out and play, Jester, come out and fly with us. All you have to do is close your eyes_. In her memory, cool soft fingers drifted over her forehead, stroked over the soft baby hair at her temple and just above her ears, tickling. Her mother had hummed so sweet and soft and Jester had obediently closed her eyes. The smell of lavender all around her as her mama helped her to drift away.

But her mama isn’t here tonight, and Jester is uncomfortably aware of the emptiness of the bed across from her.

Jester blinks up at the roof and the scratch of charcoal-grey beams sketched across it. She smiles up at the ceiling, taking no care to make it seem real. She really is the best at fooling people. Jester to the Traveller himself.

_Count the clouds. Count the singing nightingales and let them sing you to sleep_.

_Don’t look at the images burning into the back of your eyes_ , Jester suggests lightly to herself, but she looks anyway. There has been no time to dull the details of these ones. Beau falling—once, then a second time. Scratching idly at her arm, Jester stares up at Beau in the shifting, stifling mile of waves pushing down on her. Beau. Bleeding out on the steps of the altar. She hadn’t been near her, never saw the actual moment, but she knows Beau well enough to be able to paint in those missing details. Like magic, the image is suddenly complete in front of her and Jester’s breath catches in her throat.

Limbs splayed. Blood a deep red. Eyes wide and dull.

Jester’s thoughts drift to cults, and volcanoes, and stories of all the people sacrificed to hungry gods and thinks, _What if he asked? Who would I give up?_ She watches in the memory as her duplicate heals Beau and the other girl climbs to her feet and she focuses on the already dulling image to try and imprint _this_ firmly in place.

Beau is safe.

Beau is alive.

She _did_ save her. She _did_ bring her back.

Beau has recovered, Beau has been _healed_ , and even so…Beau had avoided her.

And then she found out why.

The cold clutch of fear that closes in around Jester’s chest is chased out by the heat of embarrassment that doubles, curling in and in on itself and Jester mimics it, turns onto her side and brings her knees up to her chest, tail coiling around her ankle. She yanks her pillow into her chest and at some point a closed hand finds its way to her chest, presses hard against her heart. She remembers the tremor that had sent her after Beau, that _thing_ that had threatened to shake all the way down to her foundations. She had thought she was well past the fear of being on her own, of being alone. But obviously she’s just been _fooling_ herself if the mere thought of Beau suggesting they wouldn’t be sharing a room could send her into such a spiral. And then— _then_ — _Beau_. The way that she’d _looked_ at her. Slash of a grin fading bit by bit as Jester told her exactly how close to death she had been. The repeated reassurance that Jester had made the right decision, that Beau _trusts_ her. And later that night—this same night—Beau again. Standing in front of her and looking so intently in the way that only Beau can _look_. Eyes twin flames, usually banked so severely to be only pinprick flames and now _roaring_ with fire. Leaving trails of warmth everywhere they had moved over Jester.

And the way she had _touched_ her.

Jester shivers. Rubs one hand over her arm, shoulder to elbow. The skin hadn’t really stopped tingling. It couldn’t be cold, she didn’t ever really get cold.

Weird.

Her eyes flick over to the empty bed a few feet to her left. Beau had stepped out after their… Just. _After_. That. And she hadn’t come back. Should she send her a message? Should she go after her? Beau would probably have gone to loiter somewhere…to the Archives, or gone to find a fight.

Or just plain _gone_.

Jester’s eyes trail over the neatly made bed and she searches through the dark for the bags dumped beneath it. Still there. Beau would be coming back. She has to come back. Right? For her things? At the _very_ least, she would be back for her things, but of course she’d be back because this—this can all be fixed and she doesn’t have to go, she couldn’t just leave them, she wouldn’t just _leave_.

Right?

Right?

Jester’s breath catches again at the thought. She curls all the more tightly around herself like if she curls tight enough she can compact this feeling to something more manageable, something she can handle.

It isn’t working right now but by morning… By morning, she will totally have everything under control. Everything will be totally fine.

She’s nearly done, nearly got her breathing under control from where it is lodged shakily in her throat in an icy ball, when the door to her bedroom creaks open. A familiar step, if somewhat stilted, comes through the open door and makes its way to Beau’s bed.

‘ _Beau!_ ’

The other girl pauses. It’s dark enough that Jester can barely see her; unless she’s wearing her goggles, and Jester doesn’t remember her having them on when she…when she had stepped out…Beau won’t be able to see her either.

A moment passes with nothing but the creak of Jester’s bed as she shoves up onto her elbow and a slow, steady breathing from Beau’s side of the room.

‘Yeah.’ Beau’s voice is hoarse. Low. It sends a shiver down Jester’s spine. ‘Hey. I’m – don’t worry, I’ll just get my thi-’

‘You came back!’

There’s _another_ moment that stretches for what feels like forever and Jester’s skin prickles with needling points of impatience, hot all over. If only she could see Beau’s _face_.

‘Yeah. Sure. Said I would, didn’t I?’

‘Would what?’

‘Be your roommate.’

‘Right. Yeah,’ Jester agrees quietly. She swallows. The ice melts. The crushing pressure abates, just a little, and relief rushes into the vacuum of space. Jester takes in a full breath for what feels like the first time tonight and her head rings with it, is dizzy with it. ‘Yeah, you did.’

Beau makes a low sound. More than a grunt, less than a hum. Less melodic. She sits on the edge of her bed carefully like she doesn’t want to let the bed creak, doesn’t want to disturb the night any more than she already is. Braces her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

‘This—I’m not good at – _god_ ,’ Beau hisses. ‘Look – this doesn’t…have to be a problem. Okay?’

Jester can’t conjure up the right answer. Not when her whole brain is white-hot with _She came back, she came back, she came back_ burning any other thought right out. Beau must take silence as some kind of answer because she sighs and lays back onto the hard bed.

‘You didn’t turn down the sheets,’ Jester tells her.

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘You’ll be cold.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘…Okay. Beau?’

She sighs. ‘Yeah.’

‘Thank you.’

Another long moment. Jester wishes she could see her face.

‘For what?’

‘Coming back?’

‘Oh.’ It’s a trick of the night and all the weird sounds and exhaustion that turns Beau’s sigh into what could be almost a sob. ‘Yeah.’

‘Goodnight, Beau. Sleep well.’

‘I—yeah. You too.’

* * *

Time passes.

Jester isn’t too sure on how long it is. All she knows is that she still can’t sleep, and that Beau is _right there_ , and there is this feeling that is burning up inside of her—she needs to _see_ her, she needs to _touch_ her, to make sure that she’s real, not just something that she’s dreamed up on the verge of sleep. That she’s real and okay and actually here and that she’s _okay_.

‘Beau.’

Beau isn’t sleeping either. Jester knows she isn’t; the room is too quiet and Beau is too still, not snorting or dream-kicking at her sheets.

‘I know you’re awake, Beau.’

Beau sighs. In the dark, her hand lifting is like a ripple of black against black. The hand moves upward to her head and Jester lets her mind fill in the details of it, Beau rubbing at her forehead, the pinched look she gets when she’s tired or frustrated.

‘Yeah,’ Beau mutters. ‘Yeah, you caught me. I’m awake.’

‘Are you sleepy?’

‘Yeah. I’m – so fucking tired.’

She sounds it. Jester hums an agreement. ‘Me too.’

‘So sleep then.’

Jester rolls her eyes. Beau of all people has to know how bad that advice is, but she doesn’t take it back or offer anything else. The silence starts to settle again and Jester kicks out with a foot to rustle her sheets, tap against one of the bed posts to fight against it, _hating_ its smothering press.

‘I keep thinking,’ Jester says.

‘That’d do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘Keep you awake.’

‘Oh. Yes. I think—I’d probably have nightmares,’ she confesses. There comes this _sound_ —pained, worse, _stricken_ —from Beau’s side of the room like she’s been stabbed, air escaping her. Jester whips upright, mind full of knives and agony and ghostly limbs and red hair and just _red_ red red. One foot out from beneath her sheets, she calls out. ‘ _Beau_?’

‘ _Nightmares_?’

She sounds alright. Alive. Upset, but alive and not stabbed.

‘Well _yeah_. You nearly died, Beau. _Twice_. It’s—it’s all I can think about. It’s all I can see…’ There is a rustle in the bed opposite her, the slide of fabric on fabric, and then a creak as Beau shifts. There’s the faintest sliver of light under the hallway door from someone’s candle as they make their way to the bathroom, perhaps, or to another’s room. It’s enough to see the rise of Beau’s shoulder and the dip and fall of her waist and legs. Enough to tell that Beau has turned so she is laying on her side and looking at Jester. ‘I was so scared. I’m _still_ scared,’ she admits with a little laugh. Five feet of shadow cloaks Beau’s expression. Jester cloaks her shaking hands with the bedcover so she can’t see them, folds them into the crease of her blanket. ‘I was scared to go to sleep, I think. Like…if I woke up and you weren’t there, I might not remember. That you’re okay. Might’ve lost it.’

‘Lost it,’ Beau echoes.’

‘Mhm.’

‘Huh. Well. Good thing I came back.’

‘Yeah.’ Jester nods, fervent. A curl of hair falls, brushes against her cheek. She pushes it back behind her ear. ‘It really is.’

‘You reckon you can sleep now?’ Beau asks her. For all the strained quality to it, it’s entirely gentle. Entirely fond.

Jester twists her fingers in her blanket.

‘Can I ask you something?’

She doesn’t understand the way Beau laughs. ‘Sure. Go ahead.’

‘Can I – ‘ She almost re-thinks it. But she’s _so_ tired. ‘Can I look at the – at your scar?’

‘What?’

‘I’m – it’s not as weird as it _sounds_ , I _promise_. I just – I’m so tired and I can’t sleep and I think I’m just – what if it isn’t healed and y-you _die_ while I’m sleeping and –‘

‘Okay.’

‘- and I don’t help you because I’m _asleep_ and – ‘

‘Jes.’

‘Huh?’

‘I said _okay_.’

‘Oh.’

The cold floor doesn’t bother her so much as it is a shock after having been wrapped in warmth. Jester crosses the distance between the beds as fast as she can, both to tuck her feet up underneath her as she sits on the edge of Beau’s bed, and so that Beau can’t change her mind in the in-between. If Beau were fully awake, she wouldn’t agree. Would she? But Beau _did_ agree and Jester needs this more than she has ever needed a pastry, more than she has ever needed almost anything, so she shifts again so she’s kneeling on the bed next to Beau. Sits back on her heels and stares at her, the way darkness settles over her like a veil. Softening every line until Jester’s heart _thuds_ and her hands reach out at the insistence push, the need for reassurance that this is still her Beau and not some shadowy substitute.

‘This is okay?’

‘You want – you know I got stabbed in the chest, right?’

‘Yeah.’

Beau breathes out. It’s a quiet sound, stabilizing. Jester wonders if that’s what she’s been doing every time there has been that long silence. Steadying herself.

‘Okay,’ Beau says, and she pulls her nightshirt up and over her head leaving her in just an undershirt. She looks as though she’s going to push that up too but doesn’t.

Jester’s mind paints red over Beau’s belly, seeping through the shirt.

‘Can I – _Beau_ ,’

‘Okay. Okay, it’s alright, I’m okay.’

Beau takes Jester’s hand—she’s so _warm_ , and colours burst behind Jester’s eyes, the lovely warm brown of Beau’s skin, healthy, clean of blood. The little details brush into her mind – the faint lighter slash of old scars as Jester feels the raised bump across Beau’s first two fingers when they brush over the back of her hand. From a knife trick gone wrong, Beau had told her. Beau takes her hand and guides it up, brings it up to hover over her scar. Silent permission to touch, if she needs to. If she wants to. Beau lets go of her hand. She is braced, half-raised, her weight on her elbows behind her, and she doesn’t try to move to a better position, one where she could stop Jester. One where she is less very vulnerable.

A thought occurs to her and Jester lifts her hand to Beau’s face. Feels her flinch slightly before she stills. Feels, as well, only smooth skin. No leather, no metal, no glass. No goggles.

‘They’re in my bag,’ Beau tells her.

‘Oh.’

She can’t see Jester.

It feels like being underwater again but this time she’s weightless. This time, the water hides her movements until after she’s moved, makes her look like somewhere she is not. In this moment, it is a thin veneer of deniability. In this moment, it’s safe to let her hand hover over Beau’s abdomen, over her scar, for a long moment. Beau can’t see her.

She shivers, when Jester finally touches her.

The shirt isn’t thick, definitely isn’t armour, but it could be three inches think in Jester’s mind for how well it hides the scar. Her fingers trip over the edges of it, uncertain, and she almost growls in frustration.

‘Can I – underneath?’

Beau laughs, sounding utterly bemused. ‘What the fuck is going on,’ she mutters. ‘Yeah. Fuck it. Go ahead.’

Jester finds the hem of Beau’s shirt. Slides up underneath it, all the way to the topmost part of the scar, the tapered point high on her sternum. Cool fingers press against it; it’s burning hot as Beau’s body tries to burn out whatever inflammation, whatever infection is trying to settle in her body. She’s so hot it’s almost scalding and Jester flattens her full hand against the scar, feeling the way Beau’s muscles tense and the rope of the scar rising above the rest of the skin. In the quiet, Jester hears Beau’s steadying breath get less steady.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘No.’

Jester hums thoughtfully. She strokes over the line, feels smooth skin buckle and rise to scar, cool skin to scalding hot. Drags her finger down it to feel the reverse, scar into smooth skin, hot to cold. Beau sucks a breath in. She doesn’t stop her. Jester shivers, some strange reflection of that hot and cold pouring through her, up from her fingers, her hand, her arm into her torso and the rest of her. It’s so _strange_ because she’s touching Beau – she’s never touching anyone like this, but certainly not Beau – and Beau is letting her do it, even after what she confessed earlier tonight and all of that rushes into Jester’s mind, throbs hot at her temples, in her pulse in her jaw, because Beau came _back_ , she came back to her. Even though she left, she came _back_ and she got hurt but also healed and Beau is letting her do this.

Beau sucks in a sharp breath as Jester presses harder at the scar.

Jester whips her head up. ‘That hurt? Did that hurt?’ she demands.

‘I mean, I _did_ get a little bit stabbed,’ Beau laughs.

‘It’s not fully healed?’

‘How am I supposed to know? I’m not the healer.’

‘I need to see it.’

‘Whoa, Jes,’

‘Beau, _please_. I know what it sounds like but – I – you almost died and I’m a _healer_ and,’

‘Okay, okay. Goddess,’ she mutters, ‘help me.’

Jester has never heard Beau pray before. She wonders idly, eyes closed, attention on the feeling of Beau’s scar under her fingers, whether it’s something she only does in bed.

Beau shifts, pulls the undershirt up and over her head as well. Jester doesn’t take her hand away; she feels the smooth bunch of muscles at Beau’s waist as she holds herself up without the use of her arms. She isn’t wearing anything underneath it, as warned, but Jester has seen her naked before and this is entirely like one of those times, just like in the bathhouses. Exactly alike. Beau keeps one arm in front of her chest for a second and then returns them to where she had them before, propping herself up.

Jester stares.

The scar is long and ragged, the edges of skin coming together incompletely, inexpertly. That was her fault, Jester reflects as she examines it, dragging her fingers over the healed breach. She had been too scared, too rushed, in the fight to make it clean as she would have ordinarily. Far too focused on pushing as much healing into Beau as she possibly could.

Jester bites down on her bottom lip. Her fingers slip one last time down the bumped line of the scar before sweeping out, down the planes of muscle and settling on Beau’s side. Fingers curling around her hip.

‘I’m sorry, Beau.’

‘You didn’t do this.’

‘I could have fixed it better, though.’

‘Jes…’

‘I _could_ have. I was so _scared_ though. And then later, with Obann… I meant what I said, Beau. I wanted to get you back up, I really did.’

Beau is silent. She shifts her weight, rolls a little into Jester’s hand as she pushes more onto one hand and reaches up blindly to touch Jester’s shoulder. There’s a scar there, Jester realises when Beau’s fingers find it. From the dragon. Her fingers trace it so gently before smoothing over it and dropping back down to the bed.

Jester rubs her thumb over the jut of Beau’s hip. ‘Can I try something? I don’t know if it’ll work now… It’s been a couple of days. But I can try and heal it more.’

‘I don’t mind. What’s one more scar?’ Beau shrugs.

‘Another one too many.’

‘We’ve all got scars, Jes,’

‘I want to. I want to – ‘ Jester frowns down at Beau. She’d feel cheated that Beau can’t see the glare except that the cover of darkness has very much been her friend tonight. ‘Let me help you? Let me try?’

Shadows cling to the furrow in Beau’s brow when she frowns. She nods. ‘Sure. Anything you want.’

‘Anything,’ Jester repeats, toying with the word. There are things she hasn’t been thinking about, hasn’t been letting herself think about, because the fear and the relief of Beau being alive and mostly unhurt seemed far more important in the moment. But now that Beau is beneath her and warm and alive and telling her _anything_ … Unbidden, Beau’s words _roar_ into her mind hungry like flame, and she has to suck in another breath as it burns away her oxygen. _You want to know why I don’t touch you_? she had asked and Jester didn’t get it until that moment, the way it had been described in every book and song and poem, but she had got it then. Had felt that _pull_ , like something in Beau was pulling her in, like something in her was calling to Beau. Like something had drawn Beau’s hands to her and she could _feel_ it and see the strength it took for Beau to let her hands drop.

Beau has always been so strong.

Jester wonders if she’s capable of being strong like that. Probably not. She’s always been bad, always given in to what she wants to do.

_If I touch you, I never wanna stop_.

Jester lets magic fill her. More than she’s ever used before, she lets it build and build until the faint light of it is enough to cast Beau in gold and pink. She strokes a thumb over Beau’s hip again. Brings her other hand down to Beau’s other side. And then, when she feels like the magic is going to spill right out of her, Jester ducks her head and presses her lips to the scar. Right into the centre of it where the skin is raw and painful. _Please_ , she prays. _Just let me fix one thing._

Beau’s breath leaves her like the kiss is a punch to her gut. Her arms tremble and her sheets bunch in her hands, closed now into tight fists.

‘ _Jes_ ,’ she gasps.

Jester lifts her head. Flicks her eyes from the scar – it didn’t get smaller, perhaps it never will except with time and age, but it has turned from raw red in places to nearly fully silver and fully healed – up to Beau’s face, her eyes blown wide, near fully black with the adrenaline of power, of magic, that has nowhere to go, nothing to heal, and _zings_ along her veins looking for something to fix.

‘Any better?’ Beau just stares. ‘Does this hurt?’ Jester sets a finger on the pink scar. Presses. Digs her nail in, just a little.

‘N-no.’

Jester can’t look away.

Beau is shaking. Her eyes are wide and searching in the dark, now that the faint light has faded. The scar is glossy and silver. In the dark, it is still far too easy to imagine that it isn’t healed, that the change in colouration is blood.

_What a very_ pretty _sacrifice she’d make_ , Jester thinks, and she drops her head to press a second kiss over where her nail had dug in. An apology for the thought, and for the pain. She doesn’t heal her again so when she lifts her head this time she realises she doesn’t have an explanation for why she did it at all.

Beau drops back flat. Lifts a hand to cover her eyes.

‘What are you doing to me?’ she mutters.

‘Healing you.’

‘No,’ Beau says.

Jester wants to insist, _yes_ , but it’s so obviously past the point of healing. Her hands are still on Beau. She doesn’t want to pull away.

‘You love me.’

Beau tenses. Jester can feel it. Because Beau is here, and alive, and she came back because she promised that she would. And because, she admits in the safety of the dark and her own mind, she can feel Beau tense because she couldn’t sleep without Beau in the room, and because her hands are on her and she doesn’t want to pull away, doesn’t want to let her go.

‘It hurts. Seeing you hurt.’

Beau shivers as she lets out her breath. It’s staggered and rough, not the easy release of practise, of meditation. Her cheeks are wet.

‘It’s not the same thing,’ Beau whispers. ‘That’s not the same thing.’

‘How come?’

‘It’s – just not. You can’t. You don’t, Jes, and it’s _fine_ ,’

Jester moves up the bed. Her hand moves with her, not wanting to leave Beau at all. Up to her shoulder, her neck, until it rests against her cheek. It’s clumsy, with Beau’s hand still covering her eyes and refusing to shift when Jester nudges her gently, but Jester lets her keep the cover because gods know she gets it. It’s safe, not being able to see. It’s not _real_ but it feels _safer_ , sometimes.

‘Beau.’

There’s a mile of cold water in every direction and Jester has to pick somewhere and swim toward it. No hint to which is the right way to go. She just has to trust.

‘I think it’s the same, Beau,’ she tells her. ‘I do, I think it’s the same.’

**Author's Note:**

> hi im unicyclehippo on tumblr as well, feel free to swing on by & say hi or send me a prompt x


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